RTP-area local music and culture

[John Iwaniszek <not AT hotmail.com>]

Steven Keith wrote:


yeah!  It's been happening to me for 40 years!  Those damned wait people and 
their self-serving ways!  It's almost like they do it to piss me, alone, off. 
 
or save themselves some steps on a busy night. Or something.  How thoughtless 
of them. 

Nancy Reagan was right.


> I have wanted to say this (much less thoughtfully and exceedingly less
> eloquent) for 5 years.  Thank you. Happened again at Elmos in Durham
> Saturday morning. 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ch-scene-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:ch-scene-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of grady
> Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 1:07 PM
> To: RTP-area local music and culture
> Subject: Note to waitpersons
> 
> Hello, waitpeople. Thank you very much for carrying hot plates & 
> enduring abuse from the kitchen *and* the customers, and answering dumb 
> questions, and pretending screwups were your fault even when they
> weren't.
> 
> There is just one thing I'd like to ask of you:
> 
> Stop asking me "do you need any change?" Just stop it. It is demeaning 
> to both of us.
> 
> It makes you sound either greedy, or lazy, or both, and it implies that 
> I'm going to undertip you unless you put me on the spot with your 
> question. (by the way, I'm not; 20% has been my minimum for many years 
> now, and you've really got to work your ass off to be a jerk for me to 
> even drop you to 15%)
> 
> I understand that waitpeople are too often overworked & burdened with 
> too many tables & too much to remember. However, that's the whole of the
> 
> job. That's what being a waitperson is all about. You wouldn't walk up 
> to the table & say "do you need water? because I'm really busy right
> now."
> 
> Certainly if you're one of those poor bastards stuck waiting tables at a
> 
> joint like Elmo's, where the average check is like $15 and you're 
> covering like 20 tables, then it's understandable that you wouldn't want
> 
> to waste a single trip, and it might be forgivable for you to ask about 
> the change.
> 
> But three times in the past 6 weeks, at three different "nice" 
> restaurants (as in 3.5-4 stars in all the local dining guides), with 
> two-person totals ranging between $55 and $115, I've been asked "Do you 
> need change?" It totally blows the whole illusion of 
> effortless-dining-experience that you & your fellow restaurant employees
> 
> have spent the entire evening trying to maintain.
> 
> When you tie on the apron & pick up that pad & pencil, you're pledging 
> yourself to help other people. You're committing to help the customers 
> locate & order & receive the food that's going to make them the 
> happiest. You're probably also committing to help the chef or owner get 
> rid of that terrible surplus of fennel that's clogging up the fridge, 
> but we don't need to talk about that, because it's your job to pretend 
> you're not doing that.
> 
> One thing you're *not* doing is pledging to help yourself. For the 
> duration of your shift, helping yourself should be way at the bottom of 
> the list.
> 
> And yet the question "do you need any change?" can only be construed as 
> you attempting to help yourself. It is in no way helpful to me. If I 
> need change, then I need change. If I don't need change, then I'm free 
> to get up & leave the restaurant as soon as I've put the money on the 
> tray, and it doesn't really matter to me what you do with any change 
> that might be left. Asking me whether I need change does not help you 
> help me in any way.
> 
> Last night a waiter asked me that & I said "please don't ask me that, 
> it's terribly rude" and he stammered a bit & said something about it 
> being really busy, as if somehow he were too busy to perform this last 
> relatively minor chore & he'd prefer that we just get the fuck up out of
> 
> our seats & get out the door and quit hassling him & his colleagues with
> 
> our continued presence.
> 
> I don't know where this bizarre "need change?" meme came from; I don't 
> really remember hearing it until 3-4 years ago. Perhaps it has gotten 
> worse in this age of utter credit-card dominance; I nearly always pay 
> with cash & perhaps it's such a novelty that even higher-end waitstaff 
> haven't been trained on how to behave.
> 
> So here's the lowdown: take the money to the register. Cash out. Bring 
> back change that contains at least 3 ones; this means that if the change
> 
> ends in a 5, 6, or 7, you bring 5, 6, or 7 ones, not a five and a couple
> 
> of ones. Put the change on the table. Take this opportunity to thank the
> 
> customers once more for coming (studies have shown, by the way that a 
> single final thank you has a higher impact on tip, than general good 
> service throughout the meal).
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Ross
> -- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
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> 
> 
> -- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
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> 
> 

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